Empyrean

Prosthetic; 2012

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When I interviewed the Brooklyn black metal group Mutilation Rites, vocalist/guitarist George Paul said he was "a guitar player first," and that he doesn't think of himself as a lyricist: "I'm not a poet. What I write about is very personal, and it's almost entirely about depression, vices, suicide, substance abuse." He goes as far as to "slur" his words "to make it more monotone sounding," and therefore indecipherable. In the same discussion, drummer Justin Ennis, who used to play in the New York City trio Tombs, explains that the band's music is their "catharsis," and shouldn't be looked at as positive or negative: "To us, it's all feelings at once, good and bad." Live, Mutilation Rites don't talk to the crowd between songs; instead, they play loudly, and burrow into themselves: "The volume is part of how we and the listener become immersed in the moment. It's so loud that if you're not feeling us, you will leave the room. Either you want to be there with us or you don't."

Black metal bands often come with any number of agendas; the above statements help establish this group as one who doesn't. And unlike other black metal groups in their borough, the quartet's approach sticks to the old-school black metal template: They stuff crust, d-beat, and a love of Dissection into their sound, but in a way that doesn't ask to be called "post" or "avant." They're just very adept at reviving a structure and making it breathe again.

This year, Mutilation Rites released a couple of EPs of earlier material, but Empyrean is their first proper studio album. On it, they forgo ambient intros, ponderous samples, and endless riffing in favor of a tight 35 minutes that manages to feel expansive courtesy of layers of dual guitars, multiple in-song shifts, and an ongoing push and pull. It's a mix of raw black metal, dark doom, and punk that rocks, but that also offers plenty of prettier surprises. Think of late-period Darkthrone vomiting the youthful version of themselves onto the crowd at a filthy DIY space. (Since recording Empyrean, they fittingly added bassist Ryan Jones of noise-rock icons Today Is the Day.) It's stately and epic, but booze-soaked, filthy, and feral.

They're smart songwriters with ears for catchy, compelling guitar parts. The gorgeous opener "A Season of Grey Rain" offers angular, spiraling riffs that locate dark beauty amid buzzing tremolo-picks. The galloping start of "Realms of Dementia" has a loping rhythm before the song grows angrier, complete with George Paul hocking spit. (He may not consider himself a vocalist, but his maniacal ranting and raving is as essential to what Mutilation Rites do as is their snails-pace mosh parts, dense atmosphere, and d-beat gallop.) They offer plenty of variety without resorting to "fusion." The almost 8-minute "Ancient Bloodoath" introduces a snails-pace doom vibe. Following the storm of "Dead Years", a song that mixes furious blast beats with a stately crawl, the final track "Broken Axis" ends the record with two-minutes of incrementally slower doom and drone. It's a proper set-cap, not a curve ball.

Empyrean's cover art is based on one of 19th-century artist Gustave Doré's illustrations for Dante's The Divine Comedy; the image depicts the highest realm of heaven, a "paradise" of fire or light. I like that a band digging into vices, drugs, and self-mutilation-- issues of the body-- offer a bright, celestial, otherworldly, spiritual image to depict their music. Throughout this record, it does feel like they're reaching for those sorts of heights musically, even if they're hanging out in the gutter.